Summary: A flight attendant's bad day is elevated by a benevolent mind controller.
***
This had to be the world's slowest elevator. Selena gripped the plastic handle of her suitcase, white-knuckled from stress, wobbling it as she watched the numbers go down. "C'mon, c'mon," she muttered. She pressed "L" again, knowing it wouldn't do anything, but it made her feel a little better.
Finally, it reached the first floor, and she strode out, thankful for her longer legs.
Longer legs that helped me get what turned out to be the world's most irritating job,
she thought, then chided herself. Today was not the day to decide she was too good for this, not after her latest tongue-lashing about her demeanor, and not after her rent just went up.
Rent for an apartment I never get to sleep in anyway,
that mean little voice inside her said, before she clicked her tongue hard, trying to rid herself of it.
The airport van was already out in front of the lobby, and the driver was loading up the last of the passenger suitcases. She rushed over, half-expecting the automatic doors wouldn't open for her with the morning she'd been having. "One more, please!" she yelled as he slid the last bag into the trunk. "One more."
He gave a visible sigh, but took her suitcase, struggling to push the handle down. "Looks like you need a new one," he grumbled.
"Mmhmm, thanks." She climbed into the van and settled into the only open seat, crammed between a red-nosed kid playing a game on his phone and an ebony-skinned man a few years older than her who was looking out the window contemplatively.
She took in a few deep breaths. Not out of the woods yet, but she should make it just in time for preflight prep. She should have listened to her parents when they asked her why someone who had consistently missed the bus in high school would want a job that consistently required early mornings.
Because I got tricked.
Which was such an invalid excuse. She'd never been dumb enough to think that being a flight attendant was a glamorous life, but it hadn't really hit her until her first flight, when she'd been barfed on and yelled at and stubbed her toe on suitcases too big to fit down the aisle.
"It's too early to look this done with the day."
She turned to look at the man sitting next to her. He had a warm smile, shining eyes. He glanced at her nametag. "You're with Elevated," he observed.
Elevated Airlines. Once the jewel of the American skies. They still used that tagline sometimes, which Selena now found eminently ballsy.
Selena laughed. "Yeah."
"Flight attendant?" he asked.
"Mmm." She nodded.
"I'm sorry if I overstepped," he said. "With my comment." He had a silky, deep voice. Selena thought she could listen to it all day, but she was destined for the crackling sounds of a captain who liked to make corny jokes over the loudspeaker. "Forgive me, I have an awkward way of starting conversations sometimes. Or trying to start them, with people who otherwise aren't interested in talking to me."
"No, no." Normally, she
would
have found his comment irritating, especially when she was this cranky, but she was already finding herself relaxing, wishing that this cramped, bad-smelling van would never make it to its destination as long as she could talk to this man. "It's fine, just...been one thing after another this morning. I didn't hear my alarm for almost ten minutes, then the coffee pot in my room was busted, then I noticed a stain on my sweater..." She trailed off, not wanting to bother him with her problems, though he didn't seem bothered at all.
"Where are you flying to today?" he asked.
"Boston."
"Oh." His eyes lit up even more. "Then I suppose I'll see you on board."
In her tired state, it took a moment for her to realize what he meant. "Oh. Yeah, absolutely. Hopefully you're in my section."
"Hopefully," he said with a nod and a smile.
"Are you heading home?" she asked, finally feeling up for some conversation.
"No, just more travel," he said. "I go all over."
"What do you do?"
His smile became more enigmatic, almost wistful. "Very boring things," he said.
She knew better than to pry when someone was being cagey. "And how does Butte rate among your world travels?"
"Not terribly hopping, I'll admit," he said with a chuckle. "But the people I've met are very nice. Have you had a chance to explore it?"
She shook her head. "I've come through a few times, but I'm always too exhausted by the time I get here to venture out." She paused. "I guess I'm always too exhausted to explore any place I go." Then she gave a blunt laugh. "It's funny; that was one of the things I told myself would be so great about this job. All the travelling. And all I've gotten is a world-class tour of all the three-star airport hotels this country has to offer. Two-star, in some cases."
He laughed. "What else did you hope for?"
Her parents had asked a version of that question the last time she'd been home, just with a bit more bite.
Well, what did you expect? What did you really think the job would be like?
But the way he asked it carried a warmth she hadn't received from anyone she'd talked to about her job, not that she'd gotten a chance to talk to many people about it. That was another issue. This life was terribly isolating. She didn't have time to date, or make friends, or see her family much. The few dates she had gone on had all gone similarly; once the guys found out what she did for a living, they subjected her to a barrage of "Mile High Club" jokes.
"I always loved that old timey flying aesthetic," she admitted. "You know, the flight attendants in the snazzy uniforms and their perfect hair." She awkwardly put her hand to her own hair, done up in a lazy ponytail with a few tendrils already sticking out. "I knew they didn't dress like that anymore, and I knew that flying was different now, but I still thought it would be interesting. I didn't really think it would be like the old days, you know, where flying was glamorous and one big party, but," she sighed, "maybe I did. Maybe I thought, if I got on the right route, the right plane, that would happen. I don't know, I think I just assumed that it would be something more than just a job." She flopped her hands in the air and then back down on her thighs. "I think I just need to quit."
He considered her words contemplatively, then nodded.
"Are you a therapist?" she asked. "Is that what you do?" She supposed a travelling therapist could be a thing.
"No. But I have been told I'm a good listener. I appreciate you sharing that with me. I know it's not easy to open up to a stranger."
That was kind of an odd thing to say, but she brushed it off, unable to think of anything sinister he could mean by it. "Well, I guess we're not going to be strangers for very long. At least until we get to Boston."
"True." He held out a hand. "I'm Andre."
She extended her own olive hand. "Selena." Though he'd probably guessed that from her nametag.
"Selena." He smiled. "I'm very much looking forward to getting to know you today, Selena."
The van was pulling up to the Departures area. "Don't be disappointed if we barely have time to say hello after this."
He started gathering his laptop bag. "I have a feeling I'm not going to be disappointed today."
Another odd comment. If it had come from anyone else, she might have thought this was leading to another crass joke about fucking in a lavatory. But coming from Andre, it seemed to have a different meaning. Exactly what, she wasn't sure, but it almost seemed, for lack of a better word, elevated.
"Audiobook narrator," she said, taking one more stab at his profession as the van door slid open.
He shook his head with a smirk. "See you at the gate, Selena."
#
Selena had never volunteered for gate duty before. But she did today, after seeing she wasn't scheduled for it. She was supposed to hang out all the way in the back of the cab, a job she normally preferred, because it meant minimal interaction with the general public. But today, when she told her crewmate Diana that she wanted to switch, she thought the poor girl's eyes might fall out of her head, they bugged so wide. Diana didn't ask any questions, which was good, because Selena didn't know how to explain that she wanted to scan the tickets just so she could learn where a single passenger was sitting.
She half-expected Andre to be among the first-class passengers, of which there were ten total spots. That was another reason she wanted to be on gate duty; it meant being assigned to first class once she was on the plane. But nope, he was in group two out of three of the coach class passengers, assigned to seat 10C.
He joined the line in front of a loud family of four. "Selena," he said again as he approached her podium with his ticket, this time with a sly grin that made her stomach flutter. "That's a lovely name for a lovely flight attendant."
"Well, hello there, Mr..." she made a show of looking at his ticket, "Ecchols. Andre Ecchols?"
"That's what is says on my driver's license."
"Well, we're delighted to have you aboard with us today." She'd perfected the art of the fake-but-believable smile since starting this job, and realized as she smiled at Andre that she'd almost forgotten how to make it real. Her lips twitched at the corners and she struggled to convey warmth with her eyes. But she stared back at his very real smile, and felt her whole body relax.
"Can we keep it moving?" the harried dad behind Andre barked.
